Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
